Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Unfinished, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”

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My Oceanside Adventure

It’s a strange thing, this adventuring. Sometimes what is supposed to be a big adventure turns into a small jaunt, and sometimes a small jaunt turns into a big adventure. And so it was on Thursday.

I’d checked the tide tables and found that low tide came in the morning rather than late in the afternoon, so I planned a small jaunt up the so-called California Coastal Trail. (The tides are important because, as I have learned, it’s a heck of a lot easier to walk on the wet sands of receding water than the dry sand of high tide.) Wet sand forms a hard surface that allows for a nice easy stride, and I expected a nice easy walk along Pelican Bay.

And that’s what I got.

At least for a while.

No one else was on the beach, and I marvelled at being alone with the gulls and the waves, the unending sea on my left, the Tolowa Dunes on my right. It was the sort of experience I’d hoped for when I considered walking the entire coastal trail, and there I was, plunked down alone in the middle of my dream.

I’d planned to walk four miles then cut inland on one of the dune trails to a road where I could be picked up, but I couldn’t find the trail. At least I didn’t think I did. I did find one steep dune with sandy indentations that might have been footsteps, but it didn’t seem like much of a trail. So I continued walking along the beach.

After a while, I saw houses up ahead and I figured if necessary, I would sneak through someone’s yard to get to a road. I walked the mile to the houses, but found that they were beyond reach, on the other side of the Smith River. This waterway was not a small stream I could wade across, but a full flowing river. (The photo below with smooth water is the river.)

Oh, my.

That left me with two choices — go back the way I came (a five or six mile journey) or walk along the river bank and hope I could find the dune trail that went from the river to the road. I chose the river, thinking there was no way I’d make it back along the ocean — it was simply too far.

I walked about a half mile along the river before I found the trail. Or a trail — l still don’t know if the trail was the right one. I walked for at least a mile (“walk” in this case is a euphemism for slip and stumble and slide) along the shifting sands and entangling beach grasses of the dunes, unable to get high enough to see where I was going. Although the map showed a single trail, I kept finding all sorts of similar trails cutting off the trail I was on. All seemed more like accidental trails — trails that are accidentally made when one or more people set out cross country — rather than official trails, and I had visions of being lost forever in those inhospitable dunes.

So I took whatever trails I could that headed off toward the ocean. Some parts of these trails were barely passable, heading up steep dunes, but I kept struggling, and finally came to the ocean.

Well, sort of. I could see the ocean but couldn’t get to it since I was standing at the top of a steep dune with no way to maneuver the decline by foot. I ended up sliding down the dune on my behind. Inelegant, but it did the job.

I saw footprints leading up to me and then angling away, and it shocked me to realize those were my footprints. The trail I descended had been the very trail I’d checked out a couple of hours earlier. Even if it had been the right trail, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to find the road midst all those unmarked paths. At least, walking along the bay, I knew where I was. I just had to trudge those many miles back to my starting point on the dry sands above the incoming tide.

I took a break first, sat on a piece of driftwood, nibbled on some cheese, drank water, changed my socks and knocked all the dune sand out of my shoes. Then I headed back.

I don’t know how many miles I covered in all those hours, but I do know it was at least eleven. I wasn’t particularly tired, just achy — mainly my feet and the calf muscle I’d wrenched a few days previously. And my feet were wet from sneaky waves that found me even beyond the high water line.

But I did it. Had lost my way and found it. Hiked for six hours. Managed to get back safely. Ah, adventure!

I took it easy yesterday. Only walked a couple of miles on city streets to work off the lingering stiffness, but there seems to be no lasting effects from that oceanside adventure.

Did I learn anything from this particular adventure? Probably not. Adventure is about being, and I certainly had plenty of time to simply be, as if I were just another piece of driftwood keeping vigil on the shore.

***

(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

I know it might not sound like it, but I really am trying to be careful. I make sure there is a safe place to go if the tides turn viscious. I do appreciate the advice, though, and will try to be even more careful.

ok Pat…so I know all these sensible people are telling you to be careful but I just want to say: Next time you come across a beautiful sand-dune fling yourself down sideways and roll like a mad woman all the way down! Its fun and who cares about inelegant :).

Ah, Leesa. I so need you in my life. Next time I find a dune that’s not covered in woman-eating, needle-tipped beach grass, I will roll down it. For the record, I did enjoy the part about sliding down the hill on my behind. Actually, I enjoyed all of the adventure, but that part gave me much satisfaction.

That tree in your cover photo looks like a bleached hand reaching out from the sand! My stomach sank when you revealed that you’d rediscovered your own footsteps…there’s some kind of universal moment in that realization that we have to turn around and retrace our steps. A lovely, thoughtful post!

It was strangely cosmic seeing my own footsteps. Walking along a lonely beach like that, it’s easy to lose oneself, to disappear into the fabric of the scene, and those footprints seemed unreal. Even though I knew it was not true, I did wonder if the footprints I’d seen coming down the dune had been mine, as if I’d been there before I’d been there.

Do be careful Pat… Sometimes your ‘adventures’ remind me a bit of when I was a wee girl and got lost in one of our state parks. I was really frightened when I realized I was all alone (and indeed I was if only for a short time!) and wondered what would happen to me. Guess getting lost, or worse yet having something go terribly wrong,
isn’t only for children.
I don’t mean to throw a ‘wet blanket’ on your little trips even though it may appear that way at times.
I truly do enjoy reading and seeing all of the pics you post and perhaps even living somewhat vicariously through you.
Hmmm. maybe I’m just a little envious that I can’t do things like this anymore, ya think?
Blessings,
Ree`

Hello all of Pat’s friends(and by extension my friends):
I’m the hostess of Pat’s Big Adventure. I’d like to reassure everyone that I’ve lived here since 1999 and know the area’s possibilities very well, both good and bad. Pat and I always have an exit strategy for her in the event something does go very wrong. She knows that if I haven’t heard from her by dusk I’m calling Search and Rescue, no hesitation.

And let me assure you all that Pat is very resourceful. I’m in awe of her willingness to laugh off the small mishaps she encounters. She’s really a tough cookie. I’m so proud of her adventurous spirit.

I’m so glad Pat has such a hostess! I want her to be wilder :)!!! And can I add to the words of concern, as an Aussie growing up on the beach never has a orca or shark come right in on shore unless its breached and then it doesn’t want to eat you. I’m pretty sure Pat won’t be swimming out in their territory in the dark. (Though I was grateful for the giggle)

Books by Pat Bertram

Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?